Tribute to a tireless choreographer

 Ashley Killar's affectionate biography of the renown choreographer John Cranko is written with the benefit of an insider's view, writes Karen van Ulzen.

The late John Cranko (1927-73) is a choreographer of renown, esteemed by the ballet world, with a legacy of fine ballets that are still popular today. His Romeo and Juliet, for instance, created in 1962, was revived by the Australian Ballet to great acclaim just last year. Born in South Africa, Cranko was resident choreographer at the Sadlers Wells and Royal Ballet and later artistic director of the Stuttgart Ballet. He was still at the peak of his powers when he boarded a plane with his dancers, took a sleeping pill and never woke up – dying from asphyxiation, it was eventually determined, at the age of only 43.

One of those to fall under his charm was Ashley Killar, who joined the Stuttgart as a dancer for five years from 1962. He was "galvanised by Cranko's personal ethos and inspired by its expression in the way he worked", as he writes. Now he has published a biography, Cranko, the man and his choreography, a labour of love six years in the making.

Killar's biography is both a detailed record of Cranko's career as well as a fond tribute. At nearly 500 pages it is an impressive achievement, including a catalogue of Cranko's works and selections of his letters and program synopses. Though containing mountains of research it is deftly written and is enlivened by many fascinating gems of information and glimpses of famous personalities along the way. It is no starry-eyed hagiography, however, but a clear-eyed examination which sets out, as Killar says, to document all Cranko's works, including the lesser known – the flops as well as the triumphs. 

Australia has some strong connections with Cranko and the Stuttgart. The Australian Ballet has performed his ballets and Anne Woolliams, Cranko's assistant at the Stuttgart, was artistic director of the Australian Ballet and founding dean of the Victorian College of the Arts. Many Australians will identify with Cranko's early career as a "colonial" in London, making his first steps in the early days of English ballet with the same people who influenced Australia's balletic development – such as Ninette de Valois and Peggy van Praagh.

As Killar tells it, Cranko was born wanting to choreograph – learning to dance was almost just a means to this end. His timing was fortuitous –- he arrived in London just when English dance and art were beginning to flourish after the privations of the Second World War. He was given opportunities almost immediately by Valois and was constantly busy, creating many small pieces, some successful (such as Pineapple Poll and The Lady and the Fool), some unsuccessful. It was a great apprenticeship, during which he built relationships with musicians and artists such as Osbert Lancaster and John Piper, Dorothea Tanning and Benjamin Britten, developing his ideas and craft. He was even commissioned to choreograph for Queen Elizabeth 2's coronation, a work called Gloriana (dubbed Boriana by some). By 1956 he was pronounced the "Golden Boy of British Ballet".

However his ambitious Prince of the Pagodas, created with Britten, was a disaster (its failure tormented him for years). He had a similar "cool" response to his work on Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. His reputation began to decline, and was further tarnished by some public indiscretions, including his arrest for "importuning" men in Chelsea. So when the offer came to take up the directorship of the Stuttgart Ballet, it was a welcome "fresh start" for him, a "self-imposed exile".

The Stuttgart Ballet proved to be the making of the man. There he went on to create the landmark works that are still in the repertoire today, such as Eugene Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew, as well as smaller ballets of wit, sensitivity and refinement such as Jeu de Cartes and Brouillards.

He was also a first class director and built the company from provincial insignificance to what was hailed as the "German Ballet Miracle" by the New York Times.

He had an eye for talent, nurturing a close-knit and loyal group of outstanding dancers such as Marcia Haydee and Richard Cragun. He took the company on acclaimed tours to the Soviet Union and the US and built a dedicated school and a second smaller company. It was on the way home from Philadelphia, on a chartered flight, that Cranko died.

The book includes a particularly interesting chapter in which Killar compares Cranko and choreographers Kenneth MacMillan and Frederick Ashton, who were all resident choreographers at the Royal Ballet at the same time, comparing their personalities, choreographic styles and their relationship with each other. Another enjoyable chapter is an "interlude" in which Killar describes his own experience as a dancer under Cranko, and his impressions of his warmth, charm, intelligence, infectious enthusiasm and urgent need to create. "He did not want assistants to clean up group dances early on," he writes, "because he liked what he called 'messes'; in that state his choreography was still malleable. 'Let's take it from the third mess,' he would say. Then, once he had achieved the overall form he wanted, he hurried on to the next section, other ideas, or a different ballet. Some choreographers hate to leave their choreography in the care of others . . . John was the opposite. He couldn't wait to get onto the next project."

This biography is an important record of an important figure's life and legacy. It is also a must-read reality-check for any aspiring choreographer, a frank and apparently unvarnished study of a working choreographer's life: the stress, the disappointments, the compromises, the frictions with collaborators, the pressures of high expectations, the dissatisfaction with one's own achievements. Killar reveals that Cranko suffered from depression and emotional exhaustion, particularly in his later years when he was took on an extra role as chief choreographer for the Munich Ballet.

Killar also describes Cranko as a lonely figure. As popular and adored as he was, he fell out with a number of his dearest friends over artistic matters – significantly Benjamin Britten, whom he idolised, and Kenneth MacMillan (who however choreographed his Requiem in 1978 for the Stuttgart as "a tribute to his former friend"). Killar is frank about Cranko's homosexuality and many dalliances, but writes that he had no permanent relationship and missed the comforts of family life.

All books on ballet and dance are welcome and this is a particularly valuable one, written with great erudition, love, frankness and the benefit of an insider's view. It is also an engrossing read.

Ashley Killar danced with the Scottish Ballet and Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet and was artistic director of Napac Dance Company and the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Many Australians will know him as director of a school for many years on Sydney's north shore, with his wife, Jane Allyn. 

'Cranko, the man and his choreography' is available at Bloch shops or on-line here or can be ordered from any bookshop.